For the last several years, I’ve been trying to get past whatever was holding me back as far as my writing and making a career out of it. There was this deep-seated fear around actually doing it. I had a few people ask me if I was afraid of success, and while that was an interesting question, that totally wasn’t it at all.
I’ve already talked about my fourth grade teacher verbally and emotionally abusing me and then publicly trashing an art project I actually had a great time making and was super proud of. I had never connected that incident with causing my adult fear of pursuing novel-writing as a career, but there it was. Doing exactly that.
I tried, over the years, to ask myself how I felt about my author career, and the answer that always came back was “I can’t have that, people will be mad at me.” But I could never get an answer to why can’t I have that? Who will be mad? Why would people being mad at me matter? Not until this latest round of therapy.
About a month ago, I paused and asked myself about my writing career. I felt good about it, but still kind of scared. I asked myself why I was still scared, and the reply that came back was, “People will be mad at . . . oh, wait, no one will be mad, and if they are, why should that bother me?” And the fear dissipated.
I tried again a few days later, and got the same response.
I keep expecting to be scared into inaction, but then . . . There’s nothing to be scared of anymore.
The block that has held me in frozen anxiety is gone.
But I keep reflexively expecting it to be there. It’s such a weird feeling. I reach under the bed to poke at the monster — but I sent the monster away. It wasn’t even all that hard. “G’on, now! Git!”
I think what I need to do now is just keep checking and reminding myself that I’m good now, the block is gone. Eventually, that will become the new reflexive thought.
And then, you’d better watch out!
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